Barclays: fossil fuels, new policy, climate emergency

Reclaim Finance argues that Barclays' new fossil fuel policies are inadequate, citing the bank's use of revenue-based rather than capacity-based metrics for coal exclusion and its failure to ban hydraulic fracturing outside Europe and the UK.

• Barclays is identified as the largest European financier and the 7th largest internationally of fossil fuels, providing 118 billion dollars in financing between 2016 and 2019.
• The bank's coal exclusion policy is criticized for using revenue shares rather than electricity generation shares to determine exposure. This allows Barclays to continue financing at least 30 companies that generate over 50% of their electricity from coal but derive less than 50% of their revenues from it.
• Barclays' coal exclusion thresholds are viewed as slow to implement, with the current 50% revenue threshold only scheduled to drop to 30% by 2025 and 10% by 2030, lagging behind other banks like RBS, which adopted a 15% threshold from 2022.
• Regarding oil and gas, Barclays excludes hydraulic fracturing projects and companies in Europe and the United Kingdom, but maintains financing for such projects in other countries, including the United States and Argentina.
• Barclays has introduced exclusions for direct financing of new oil and gas projects in the Arctic and companies deriving more than 50% of their revenues from that sector, though the document notes the bank's financing in this sector increased in 2019.

APA

admin (2020). Barclays: fossil fuels, new policy, climate emergency. Reclaim Finance. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2020/03/30/barclays-fossil-fuels-new-policy-climate-emergency/

Chicago

admin. Barclays: fossil fuels, new policy, climate emergency. Reclaim Finance, 2020. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2020/03/30/barclays-fossil-fuels-new-policy-climate-emergency/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=admin |title=Barclays: fossil fuels, new policy, climate emergency |publisher=Reclaim Finance |date=30 March 2020 |url=https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2020/03/30/barclays-fossil-fuels-new-policy-climate-emergency/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{admin2020barclays, author = {admin}, title = {{Barclays: fossil fuels, new policy, climate emergency}}, publisher = {Reclaim Finance}, year = {2020}, month = mar, url = {https://reclaimfinance.org/site/en/2020/03/30/barclays-fossil-fuels-new-policy-climate-emergency/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }